


Crumple

by Settledvagabond



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Angst, F/F, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 07:38:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8319439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Settledvagabond/pseuds/Settledvagabond
Summary: I'm so sorry. My babies. They were always an angst pairing to me and still are, apparently.
(Blame Tarrah!)





	

With languid strides, heavy and slow like ice melting, Seven walked into the turbolift just ahead of the captain. The very human urge to slump against the wall washed coldly over her but she stayed erect, a slightly exaggerated sigh through her nose her only concession to outward expression. Her jaw muscles flexed but she did not grind her teeth. She stared ahead blindly into the space between the open lift doors.

Kathryn stepped just far enough into the lift for the doors to close in a hush behind her. She watched Seven; Seven did not watch her.

They hung in silence for a moment, no command moving the cup of a room, the atmosphere fermenting the longer they remained. Kathryn swallowed emptily.

"Astro... astrometrics," Kathryn said finally, through a dry, sticking throat.

She stepped carefully a few paces away from the tight yet inert form of her crew member, leaning against the wall an arm's length from Seven. Close enough to tough. Far enough to not try.

The hum of the lift was too numb and inhuman, too detached, it was driving Kathryn slowly mad. Her heart thrummed in her chest. Why couldn't this damn trip be shorter?

"I'm... I'm sorry, Seven."

Seven cocked an eyebrow and tilted her head slightly, as she was so often wont to do when something was both illogical and beneath her. Her ocular implant, though immobile, seemed to flex as curiously with her.

"Do not be. I understood the chances of success were low. I did not "get my hopes up" as they say."

The phrasing was awkward, even for the once-upon-a-time Borg and it made Kathryn cringe.

"Still. I shouldn't have gotten as excited about it myself - it... was inappropriate."

Nothing but Seven's head turned as she looked at Kathryn and it was eerie. She couldn't help it - even now, the captain sometimes felt something uncomfortable when Seven leveled her with that look. She had some sympathy for those who endured a glare from her now.

"Elaborate."

Kathryn sighed.

"I was hoping, for your sake..." The captain shook her head and leaned back, eyes to the ceiling. "I know how much you want this, Seven. To feel... to be...."

"Normal?" Seven supplied. Kathryn's eyes popped open and she looked at Seven with open hurt.

"Like you want to be," she replied, sympathy and sweet sadness ringing clear in every word. Her hand, of its own accord, reached toward Seven for a moment, and for an instant Kathryn wondered what the implant would feel like against her skin - the thought made her pull the offending hand back, chastising herself internally. She leaned against the wall again, looking away from Seven, who was eyeing her quizzically. She didn't know what to say.

And Seven didn't know what she wanted the captain to say. Not anymore.

The lift softly came to a stop, the air around it whispering - Kathryn wondered if she was hearing things, if it didn't quietly call her a coward. Seven's brow wasn't quite furrowed but she seemed to be thinking intently about something. The doors opened and neither of them moved for a moment.

Seven opened her mouth gently and silently for a moment, as though the tracks of her thoughts changed a few times before one clicked into place.

"I think... I will not do any further work today."

She turned to look at Kathryn with such a soft, sad look, it broke the captain's heart.

"If that is acceptable?" She didn't so much ask as confirm. Kathryn nodded, her face pained.

"Seven of course." She finally reached over and gently touched the soft skin and cold metal of Seven's hand, in a way that she thought was comforting. When Seven looked a bit stricken, she softened her voice and came closer. "Of course," she repeated, trying her utmost to saturate the inadequate words with everything she meant and felt.

"Seven we love you just the way you are," Kathryn said thoughtlessly. Seven turned her face away slightly. "And all of this - any of this - is just to give you what you say you want, not because we want to change you."

Seven seemed coiled, poised to move, or collapse in on herself. Kathryn pulled Seven's delicate hand closer, into both of her own.

"Seven?"

Her sharp, cool eyes darted from the floor, to Kathryn, to the open and inviting escape of the door - then suddenly and uncomfortably settled on Kathryn's startled eyes. She held her gaze a moment longer than necessary but she felt vindictive. The feels of the captain's small, warm hands burned against Seven's icy one, fire and ice.

Seven's eyes peered into Kathryn's relentlessly until finally her frosted mouth opened and asked, mercilessly,

"We the entire ship will be fine if I don't change? Or you and I will be fine if I don't change?"

A soft but audible gasp escaped Kathryn's lips at the entirely unexpected question - her grip eased a moment and Seven snatched her hand back in that instant. Her words were frozen daggers, her heart locked and racing in her throat.

"That's what I thought."

She turned and stalked out, but only made it two hard steps before she felt her wrist grabbed - and she was unceremoniously ripped back into the lift, and in a blur she was in the Captain's arms, bodies colliding, slamming, lips met lips, her breath became Kathryn's breath became her breath. There was an echo of inhale and exhale and sighs in the plastic silence until just as roughly they parted.

Kathryn's hand rested on Seven's chest, keeping them apart. Her eyes were even greener for the tears welling in them. Her expression was indescribable to Seven, a mix of pain and loving and wanting and disbelief.

"Don't you... ever..." she swallowed and shook her head but didn't break eye contact as the tears broke her voice. The hand on Seven's chest shook. "Don't you ever act like I don't care, Seven. Never."

The hand dropped, Kathryn slipped past Seven quickly, and the young woman was too stunned to catch her as the captain had her. Before she could even blink a second time, the captain's figure vanished through the door on the other side of the astrometrics lab and she was gone.

Seven's heart stopped in her chest.

"Computer... Mess... Mess hall please."

It was the furthest away location, with no stops between her and it.

Seven stumbles back and slumped against the wall and down to the floor.

 


End file.
